The Miracle of Transformation
Epiphany 2
January 19, 2025
Fr. Tim Nunez
May my spoken word be true to God’s written word and bring us all closer to the living word, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
This morning, we come to Jesus’s first miracle as recorded by the Apostle John, the changing of water into wine at the wedding in Cana. Our faith holds that God speaks and acts in the world.
In his book on Miracles, C.S. Lewis notes that scripture attests to two types of miracles. One type is God doing in a condensed time and place what God does all the time anyway. For example, every year rains fall on vineyards all over the world. The water soaks into the ground where it is absorbed by the roots of the grape vines along with other nutrients which the vine eventually carries into the grapes themselves. These grapes are gathered, squeezed and the juice will quite naturally turn into wine.
(In fact, it takes special care to preserve it as grape juice – Thomas Welch patented the modern process in 1869. Grape juice naturally starts fermenting immediately.)
Changing water into wine at Cana is that first type of miracle. God always turns water into wine. It’s just compressed into a particular moment, in a particular place. John’s testimony is clear and it presents a challenge.
There is an objective truth here. Jesus either turned water into wine or he didn’t. That cannot be conclusively provable by observation or science. This event was long ago and far away. We could choose to dismiss it as questionable or irrelevant, but I’m inclined to trust the apostle’s witness as evidence that something extraordinary happened that entirely changed their lives and the world as we know it. If these apostles are honest and true, Jesus makes all the difference.
The other type of miracle is that God does something now that he plans to do ultimately. Healing a blind man would be this sort of miracle. A blind man may well go along his whole life without seeing. But God’s ultimate plan for that blind man is to see, if not in this life, then in the Kingdom of God. He gives the blind man sight to see in this life and sight to see Jesus as Lord and Savior. The whole issue of sight is also tied to perception.
“Seeing” is much more than photons bouncing off our retinas. People could physically see Jesus all the time, yet not seeing him for who he truly is. Healing the blind man can open everyone’s eyes to seeing Jesus more clearly. Healing a deaf man can help everyone hear Jesus more clearly.
That second type of miracle is in play at the wedding in Cana as well. This miracle is the first of seven signs in John’s gospel and it foreshadows what God is going to do through Jesus. The first signal is that this is happening “on the third day” – after Jesus called his first disciples. That’s obviously a reference to the Resurrection, which John remembers in hindsight.
The second signal is the wedding. We see God’s promise in this morning’s passage from Isaiah. “For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your builder marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.” (Isaiah 62:5)
This image of Jesus as the bridegroom is repeated in the gospels, in Paul’s letters and ultimately in the Revelation to John. Revelation 21:2 says, “And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” (Revelation 21:2, p. 1041 in the pew Bibles.)
And it carries to our theology of marriage today:
The bond and covenant of marriage was established by God in creation, and our Lord Jesus Christ adorned this manner of life by his presence and first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. It signifies to us the mystery of the union between Christ and his Church, and Holy Scripture commends it to be honored among all people. (BCP 423)
The third signal is this cute exchange with his mother.
“They’re out of wine.”
“Yes, and? It’s not my time.” (Don’t be thrown off by Jesus saying “woman” to her. It’s like saying “mother.”)
“Do whatever he tells you.” (You can almost see her shake her head, and the eye roll.)
This is the moment of a cosmic shift. Jesus will transform the water in place for the old covenant ritual of handwashing, and external observance, into the new wine of the new covenant. This also points, of course, to the Last Supper. “This is my blood. Whenever you drink it, do this in remembrance of me.”
He does so in lavish abundance. Up to 180 gallons would wash a lot of hands. Up to 180 gallons of wine is a lot, more than could possibly be needed, especially for guests who are already drunk. And it’s so good that the steward asks, “Why have you saved the best for last?” This is the first “foretaste of the heavenly banquet” that has been prepared for you.
There is a piece of each of these elements in God’s plan for you. God intends that your daily walk with him will have some real benefit in this life. He wants you to be better, better than you were and better than you are, in every aspect of your life: your faith, relationships, work or retirement, the way you handle money and the ways you spend your free time. He may accomplish this by condensing into a short time what you would have taken years to accomplish He may give you a physical healing, or at least strength to endure your hardships.
Or he may give you a spiritual gift now that you would have eventually, a foretaste of the “you” that is to come as a citizen of his Kingdom (like wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment or tongues). That may be in the wonder of his presence or it may be as dramatic as opening our eyes to see as he intends us to see.
He intends to do with you what Jesus did with that water. He wants to distill you quickly into the richest, best wine around.
AMEN